Artist Profile

Obsession: Karl Orozco

By dismantling and depicting dead machines, artist Karl Orozco imagines new life cycles for our throwaway technologies.

Joshua Ware • September 05, 2025

Photo of Colorado-based artist Joel Swanson's sculpture, a cube made out of Pink Pearl erasers.

Obsession: Joel Swanson

Denver-based artist Joel Swanson’s obsessive processes explore how formal and corporeal repetitions function as methods of discipline.

Joshua Ware • September 05, 2025

Photo of a five-dollar bill adorned with prints of two Black women with a baby, glitter, and steel money clips. By Phoenix-based artist Philip Gabriel Steverson.

ArtistsArizonaVol. 12 Obsession

Obsession: Philip Gabriel Steverson

In video performance and charged sculptures, Philip Gabriel Steverson channels rage and pain at the loss of his mother through a devotion to healing.

Nicholas Frank • September 05, 2025

Cande Aguilar painting inspired by rotulo signs.

ArtistsTexasVol. 12 Obsession

Obsession: Cande Aguilar

For Cande Aguilar, the hand-painted signs of the Rio Grande Valley define contemporary painting more than museums do.

Nicholas Frank • September 05, 2025

Photo of an artwork by Albuquerque-based artist Justine Kablack, showing a visual of an asphalt highway painted onto pine and plywood.

ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession

Obsession: Justine Kablack

Albuquerque-based artist Justine Kablack devoutly repeats images of the road, embracing its contradiction as both limitless and constrained.

Maggie Grimason • September 05, 2025

Photograph of artist jesse lovell in one of their disguises named Chelsea, featuring a woman in a blonde wig wearing a black dress and pink floral purse.

ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession

Obsession: jesse lovell

Albuquerque-based artist jesse lovell’s practice has expanded over the years to include P.I. work, living somewhere between caricature and sousveillance.

Nancy Zastudil • September 05, 2025

FeatureNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession

Queen Agnes

Abstract painter Agnes Martin sought isolation in New Mexico to stoke her obsessive practice. She found vibrant community.

Jordan Eddy • September 05, 2025

A woman stands in front of a patch of gritty earth on a concrete floor, with four microphones positioned around the room. Karima Walker is a Tucson-based artist with a major solo exhibition at MOCA Tucson.

ProfileArizona

Karima Walker’s “Grief Rituals” Seek the Non-Linear Wisdom of Walking in Circles

The Arizona-born artist’s MOCA Tucson exhibition draws inspiration (and soil) from the Santa Cruz River, melding body and land.

Camille LeFevre • December 23, 2024

Artist and designer Paulina Ho stands next to one of her large-scale canvases, her arms full of ceramics.

ProfileNew Mexico

Longtime New Yorker Paulina Ho Suddenly Started Painting—and Pining for—the Southwest

Santa Fe-based designer and artist Paulina Ho’s work tilts reality to find pleasure in the everyday absurdities of her new Southwestern environs.

Daisy Geoffrey • September 12, 2024